Formula Student

The only thing that can said with certainty about the Daymak C5 Blast is that it defies description. The Canadian company makes a full range of electrified vehicles from bicycles to trikes to mobility karts to scooters. Now it says it is working on building the quickest vehicle on earth — a battery powered go kart that incorporates an electric motor and a total of 12 fans to lift and push the vehicle forward. If everything works out as planned, the Daymak C5 Blast will storm to 60 miles per hour in a heart stopping 1.5 seconds. The fastest electric car today is the Team Delft entry in the European Formula Student competition. It gets to 60 in just a hair over 2 seconds.

The C5 Blast’s uses a 10 kW brushless electric motor powered by a 2.4 kWh battery. At the rear are 4 Electric Ducted Fan motors that add 132 pounds of forward thrust. Underneath are 8 more ducted fans that the company says cut the kart’s 441 lb weight almost in half, thanks to 212 lbs of upward thrust.

Last year, we raved about an electric race car built by a team of Swiss university students that goes 0-100 kph (62 mph) in just 1.785 seconds. From a dead stop, it needs only 98 feet of track to get moving that fast.

The Formula Student competition allows engineering students to design, develop, and build forward-looking race cars in a bid to secure jobs in top-rung series like IndyCar, WEC, and Formula 1. It’s a great format, and often really does produce some seriously innovative ideas. Even so, it’s rare for outsiders to get an up-close-and-personal look at a Formula Student race car.

For fans of crazy race cars, though, it’s Christmas in July- because Racecar Engineering magazine just published an incredibly detailed look at Team Delft’s all-electric DUT15 racer, and the Delft guys released their own excellent and informative video (above) showing how their advanced, aerodynamic contender comes together.

I won’t re-print the RE article here (that would be crazy illegal, anyway), but I will give you a sense of just how far they get into the DUT15 by including their “DUT15 Specs” table and a sample of the type of photos and captions they included to entice you to go over there and checking out the DUT15 for yourself. Enjoy!

Formula Student DUT15 Close-Up

One design concept that has carried over from the DUT14 is its unique wheel layout, with external brake discs. On DUT15 the concept integrates part of the brake caliper with the upright reducing weight even further. On the inner face of all four wheels sit the hub motors.

The new design of the accumulator, which provides the energy to the four electric motors, can store 7.2 kWh of energy. This is an increase of 12% with respect to the accumulator of the DUT14. Simulation showed that the increase of energy capacity is more favorable although the weight increases. The result is that the car can have a higher average velocity during the endurance. Though during the endurance at Silverstone the Delft drivers had to drive at a reduced speed in order to last the distance, something the teams main rivals ETH Zurich failed to do.

With just two races left on its schedule, the inaugural Formula E season is still far from settled. Beginning next season, teams will be allowed to start modifying their racing machines to a much larger degree as design regulations are lifted.

Perhaps some of the teams will go talk to the Swiss university students behind Grimsel, the record-setting Formula Student race car that goes from 0 to 60 MPH in just 1.785 seconds. That’s about half the time it takes the highly-regarded Tesla P85D to reach the same speed. Even the cutting-edge Spark-Renault Formula E race cars don’t seem to be a match for the four-wheel drive electric monster from a nation that has outlawed motorsports for 60 years.

What’s more, there’s an entire generation of fresh-faced engineering students entering a world where electric vehicles are now in-vogue. We’re only seeing the very beginnings of what I’m sure are many astounding innovations in the field of vehicle electrification.

If some students from Switzerland can build a better Formula E racer than some of the most talented and best-funded teams in the world, imagine what electric racing might look like just five or ten years from now?

An electric racer built by a team of Swiss university students goes 0-100 kph (62 mph) in just 1.785 seconds, which is faster than a Formula One car. From a dead stop, it needs only 98 feet for the task.

Designed and built by the Academic Motorsports Club of Zurich (AMZ), the car finished first overall in the 2014 Formula Student competition after winning races in Germany, Austria and Spain. Along the way, it earned awards for its engineering design, endurance, lateral acceleration on a skidpad and straight line acceleration. It is the group’s fifth all-electric race car.

Nicknamed Grimsel, the electric racer features four 37 kilowatt motors, one for each wheel. Combined, they crank out a mind bending 1200 lb/ft of torque. Sophisticated electronic controls enable torque vectoring, a design feature that makes it possible to finely control the amount of torque going to each wheel in real time, giving it incredible handling.

The secret to the car’s astounding performance is its amazingly low weight. The one-piece carbon-fiber monocoque weighs just 40 pounds including the car’s roll hoops. Finished, with suspension, motors and batteries installed, the car weighs a featherlight 435 pounds which is less than many production motorcycles.

This year’s car is half a second faster to 100 kph than last year’s racer which used the same 37 kilowatt motors but weighed more. It’s going to be very hard for AMZ to top Grimsel’s 0-100 kph performance for the 2015 racing season.

Being an engineering student ain’t easy, or at least that’s what I’ve heard. But engineering students arguably have the coolest competitions, like the Formula Student race that pits engineering students from across Europe in a contest of handling speed. While normally dominated by gas-powered karts, this year electric cars took both first and second place, perhaps signifying a paradigm shift in this collegiate motorsport.

AZM Racing, from ETH Zurich in Switzerland, scored a total of 921.3out of 1,000 points in a series of events that include a 22km/13 mile endurance event, time trials, autocross, figure-eight, and acceleration events. Despite having some electrical gremlins, the team handily outpaced the gas-powered competition, which suffered in the face of higher-than-average temperatures.

A distant second-place went to USA Zwickau, which scored 851.5 points, which still beat out a cadre of favored gas-powered cars. Electric cars have only been competing for five years in Formula Student, failing to even finish the endurance events at first. Now though, they are winning, and could change the way other engineering teams approach the competition next year.

Electric cars are already making moves on entry-level motorsports; how soon before they start dominating other, bigger races as well?

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The content produced by this site is for entertainment purposes only. Opinions and comments published on this site may not be sanctioned by, and do not necessarily represent the views of Sustainable Enterprises Media, Inc., its owners, sponsors, affiliates, or subsidiaries.